Republicans shamelessly displayed President Barack Obama's picture defaced with a Hitler mustache. Is there one Republican who will publicly defend such insanity?

A significant number of Republicans steadfastly peddle the nonsense that Obama isn't an American. If they really had the courage of their conviction, they would have appealed that constitutional question to the conservative-minded Supreme Court.

Republicans' attempt to steal the presidency through voter suppression was defiantly un-American. After the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Legislature passed a strict voter-ID law, its House Majority Leader Mike Turzai boasted the law would "allow Romney to win Pennsylvania." Fortunately, a state judge thwarted the planned theft.

It was sweet poetic justice to watch Republicans, who cower at the feet of Grover Norquist, self-destruct in 2012.

Ronald Entwistle

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San Pablo

Need to protect our students

I have read many letters in the Times criticizing the NRA's suggestion that police be placed in our schools to protect the students.

I just talked to one of my daughters living in a Phoenix suburb who said that police have been in all of the schools in her area for more than 10 years. She also said that they should be there to protect our most valued asset.

If, however, you don't consider your children a valuable asset, then don't try to protect them.

Don Crook

Fremont

Talk-radio clowns' only goal is ratings

Following President Barack Obama's victory in November, some letter writers and bloggers immediately proclaimed that Obama had secret plans to confiscate everyone's firearms, set up concentration camps for conservatives, shut down talk-radio stations, establish a one-man dictatorship and force everyone to submit to Islamic law.

Interestingly, no evidence was ever presented to back up any of these goofy claims.

Common sense tells us (or it should) that if the president had any intention of implementing any of that stuff, he wouldn't have sat around and waited four years to get started on it. After all, in 2010 and 2011, Obama's chances of re-election looked pretty dismal.

The talk-radio clowns perpetuating this nonsense don't even believe it themselves. But they know what will jack up their ratings. They also know that thousands of Obama-hating, gun-obsessed people who don't have all their oars in the water will automatically accept this nonsense as gospel truth.

That, in itself, speaks volumes on the gullibility of many American citizens.

James Snyder

Benicia

Any gun legislation must be tempered

Without any doubt, banning assault weapons won't curtail the gun violence around us to any meaningful extent. Equally certain, it is powerfully evident that their ownership must be prohibited.

The turmoil this discussion generates poorly camouflages the truth: Our attempts to bolster and refine gun regulations are testimony to our desire to seize an easy and, ultimately, useless response to a problem we don't have the courage to face.

Assault weapons must be banned. However, any legislation we create must not merely serve the law, it must adhere to the intent of the law, which is greater. It must be an enduring monument to our redoubled efforts to work together for the well-being of all of us, to understand ourselves as well as one another and to continue toward achievement of fairness wherever we may find ourselves.

This must also be a monument to the hope that when we encounter injustice, we have the wisdom and courage to stand together against it.